The 'Axis of Evil' begins here

These are the faces of killers.

They are not like the Muslim-fanatic killers and terrorists reaping the whirlwind, for example, in Mumbai this week. Those misguided and evil souls think they kill for the sake of Allah . . . to uphold the dignity and law of the Almighty.

These homegrown, all-American killers do so because stupidity and greed is a deadly combination.

OUR TERRORISTS and killers are, instead, shoppers of mass destruction. They destroy, pillage and kill at Wal-Mart for the sake of cheap manufactured goods and Black Friday bargains. Most of it, stuff they don't even need.

Third World "primitives" riot over flour, wheat and rice, because they and their children are hungry. We Americans are much more advanced. We kill for stuff we can't even eat.

By the hundreds, we trample defenseless pregnant women and employees of big-box stores for the Holy Trinity of digital TVs, Tickle Me Elmos and George Foreman grills. As the New York Daily News recounts on its website today, we should be so fuggin' proud to be American:

A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island store Friday morning, police and witnesses said.

The 34-year-old employee, a temporary maintenance worker, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."

(snip)

A 28-year-old pregnant woman was knocked to the floor during the mad rush. She was hospitalized for observation, police said. Early witness accounts that the woman suffered a miscarriage were unfounded, police said.

Three other shoppers suffered minor injuries, cops said.

ALL THIS. For stuff. Not food, not God . . . stuff.

Cheap stuff.

The Daily News further reported shoppers blithely streamed past emergency medical crews as they tried to save the trampled Wal-Mart worker. Priorities, you know.

One shopper summed it up pretty well for the newspaper, and for the demented, barbaric society we have become:

"They're savages," said shopper Kimberly Cribbs, 27. "It's sad. It's terrible."

UPDATE: Houston, we really, really have a problem. And we can't blame this one on the Religious Right. In fact, the Religious Right might hold a big part of the answer.